Would you know what makes men greedy for the future? It is because no one has yet found himself. Your parents, to be sure, asked other blessings for you; but I myself pray rather that you may despise all those things which your parents wished for you in abundance. Their prayers plunder many another person, simply that you may be enriched. Whatever they make over to you must be removed from someone else.
I pray that you may get such control over yourself that your mind, now shaken by wandering thoughts, may at last come to rest and be steadfast, that it may be content with itself and, having attained an understanding of what things are truly good—and they are in our possession as soon as we have this knowledge—that it may have no need of added years.
He has at length passed beyond all necessities—he has won his honorable discharge and is free—who still lives after his life has been completed. Farewell.
I pray that you may get such control over yourself that your mind, now shaken by wandering thoughts, may at last come to rest and be steadfast, that it may be content with itself and, having attained an understanding of what things are truly good—and they are in our possession as soon as we have this knowledge—that it may have no need of added years.
He has at length passed beyond all necessities—he has won his honorable discharge and is free—who still lives after his life has been completed. Farewell.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 32
The tree is content to grow in its spot of soil and to taste of the sun, simply being a tree. The bird is content to live in the branches of the tree and to nibble on some of its fruit, simply being a bird.
And a man feels the need to cut down all the trees and to hunt down all the birds, because he has not yet learned to be content with simply being a man. He is gifted with reason so he might freely be aware of his own nature, and yet in choosing ignorance he is frantically grasping at anything and everything beyond himself.
My lust for continual acquisition and consumption is built upon the premise that success always requires defeating someone else, which in tun arises from my failure to recognize the good that is already within my soul. I rely on the promise that, somewhere down the line, everything will eventually fall into place for me, the whole time forgetting how no amount of hoarding will ever make a man any better.
Most of our parents did it, and now most of us are following the same path: the first twenty years spent just preparing to enter the fray, then another twenty years of fighting to climb the ladder, then another twenty years of kicking at anyone who is still at your heels, then a final twenty years of watching all those vanities fade away.
It doesn’t sound so appealing when you strip away the glamor. And now try sleeping at night when you remember how many people you abused, betrayed, and abandoned during your glorious journey.
Pursue it if you believe you must, but I will go a different route. I work in humdrum ways to treat each moment with appreciation, and to advance with tiny steps toward a time when I no longer feel the longing for more time. Did I do it with all the understanding and love at my disposal? Then it hardly matters where it happened, who noticed it, or how long it lasted.
Some would insist that freedom means getting everything you want, while others are wise enough to know that freedom means being relieved of any further want.
The tree is content to grow in its spot of soil and to taste of the sun, simply being a tree. The bird is content to live in the branches of the tree and to nibble on some of its fruit, simply being a bird.
And a man feels the need to cut down all the trees and to hunt down all the birds, because he has not yet learned to be content with simply being a man. He is gifted with reason so he might freely be aware of his own nature, and yet in choosing ignorance he is frantically grasping at anything and everything beyond himself.
My lust for continual acquisition and consumption is built upon the premise that success always requires defeating someone else, which in tun arises from my failure to recognize the good that is already within my soul. I rely on the promise that, somewhere down the line, everything will eventually fall into place for me, the whole time forgetting how no amount of hoarding will ever make a man any better.
Most of our parents did it, and now most of us are following the same path: the first twenty years spent just preparing to enter the fray, then another twenty years of fighting to climb the ladder, then another twenty years of kicking at anyone who is still at your heels, then a final twenty years of watching all those vanities fade away.
It doesn’t sound so appealing when you strip away the glamor. And now try sleeping at night when you remember how many people you abused, betrayed, and abandoned during your glorious journey.
Pursue it if you believe you must, but I will go a different route. I work in humdrum ways to treat each moment with appreciation, and to advance with tiny steps toward a time when I no longer feel the longing for more time. Did I do it with all the understanding and love at my disposal? Then it hardly matters where it happened, who noticed it, or how long it lasted.
Some would insist that freedom means getting everything you want, while others are wise enough to know that freedom means being relieved of any further want.
—Reflection written in 12/2012
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